For many of us, the name Tupperware is as American as apple pie on the 4th of July. Yet, this iconic brand now does far more business outside of the U.S.A. than within it. Last year, 2013, it derived 90% of its revenue from international markets, and taking the analysis one step deeper, received 65% of revenue from emerging markets.

Now officially named Tupperware Brands Corporation (TUP), this iconic company continues to sell directly to consumers at the home and office parties that helped make it a household name. Today, the company hosts another party roughly every second and a half, and continues the tradition of independent, commissioned hosts, or sales persons.

The following information is a highlight of the real-time guru activity we saw this week. To view more information on these gurus, check out their guru portfolios. The “Real Time Picks” reports the stock purchases and sells that Gurus have made within the prior two weeks. If a Guru makes a purchase or sell of a company in which they own a greater-than 5% stake, SEC regulations require them to report their transaction within two days. This week we saw notable increases and buys in Real Time activity from John Rogers (Trades, Portfolio) and RS Investment Management (Trades, Portfolio).

Growing global economic recovery continues to place oil and gas explorers and explorers under pressure. Although recovery across the globe is unequal, energy demand rises steadily. While the most dramatic change in indicators has been recorder for North America, Europe struggles to find its north. Meanwhile, the Chinese economy returns to normal growth indicators. In addition to the pressure from developed economies over energy supplies, the Middle East and Africa fall prey to political uncertainty, scaring away foreign investors. The so called Arab Spring, and continued attacks to assets located in Africa, left many energy producing countries out of the business momentarily. Hence, others regions became more attractive as the proper equipment became available. For example, shale reserves in the US or Argentina. And, even the Chinese government took interest in the exploration of unconventional reserves. One company with important presence in North America is Cabot Oil and Gas (COG).

Novartis AG (NVS) is a company committed to providing healthcare solutions to improve the health and well-being of patients and societies worldwide through the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of healthcare products and pharmaceuticals. The firm generally sells its prescription drugs, mainly to wholesale and retail drug distributors, hospitals, clinics, government agencies and managed healthcare providers. Its portfolio includes innovative medicines, preventive vaccines and diagnostic tools, generic pharmaceuticals and consumer health products. Last quarter was a rough one for this company. Its reported net income was $2.1 billion, and fell short from the $2.4 billion estimate. There's some worry that, as generic competition continues to increase, the company's growth does otherwise. Is there any chance it doesn't?

According to the GuruFocus Value Screen that shows value strategies of stocks traded at historical low P/B ratios, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA), Imperial Oil Ltd (IMO) and Clean Harbors Inc. (CLH) are held by numerous gurus and trading near their 10-year low. Here are the company updates and trading highlights as of the third quarter of 2013.

NQ Mobile is a China-based provider of mobile Internet services that markets itself with concern for user protection. But what about shareholder protection? According to Forbes, NQ is in trouble. When research firm Muddy Waters blew the whistle on its largest client back in October, calling the company a “fraud,” NQ Mobile’s market cap fell almost instantly by $500 million. The stock price also plummeted from $24.62 on Oct. 21, 2013, to $8.80 on Oct. 28. NQ Mobile denies allegations, according to Forbes and Bloomberg.

Three times in the last week Businesswire reported on NQ Mobile’s legal issues regarding a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of purchasers of NQ Mobile Inc. securities between May 5, 2011 and October 24, 2013. According to Businesswire press releases for Glancy Binkow & Goldberg, Brower Piven and the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, NQ Mobile is accused of overstating and exaggerating its financial performance based on the October 24, 2013 Muddy Waters Research Group report that also alleged the following: Continue Reading »

The privately owned investment manager, RS Investment Management, is led by CEO Matthew H. Scanlan and based in San Francisco. The company’s portfolio currently lists 310 stocks, with 56 new stocks, a total value of $13.78 billion, and a quarter over quarter turnover of 17%. After second quarter trading, the portfolio’s top four sectors are weighted as: energy at 20.9%, basic materials at 16.8% and financial services and industrials both at 13.2%.

Crown Holdings (CCK) manufactures steel and aluminum cans for the food and beverage industry. We were first attracted to Crown as an investment because of the stable end-demand for its products given that, even in recessions, purchases of canned goods do not materially change. In addition, the can industry has become increasingly consolidated in the more developed markets, resulting in disciplined behavior around both pricing and volumes. The result has been steady returns on capital and a business that produces a consistent and healthy stream of free cash flow.

Crown historically has returned its excess cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases. However, growth in emerging markets, particularly Asia and South America, provided Crown with the opportunity to recently deploy some of its excess capital into new projects with high returns. As such, Crown provides us with an opportunity to own a business with both very attractive underlying characteristics and additional growth opportunities. While the pace of growth has slowed and there are fewer potentially attractive new capital projects since we first purchased the stock, the company now has more free cash flow to allocate to share repurchases. Continue Reading »

Life Technologies (LIFE) is a global life sciences company that manufactures and sells instruments, consumables, and services used in life science research as well as in commercial applications. The Company sells a broad range of products including cell cultures, sample preparations, DNA analysis and forensic products. Life has more than 75,000 customers in 160 countries and provides integrated and complete solutions that address researchers' workflow. End markets for Life's products are academic/government organizations (~45% of revenue), pharmaceuticals and biotech (~30%), and applied markets (~25%), which include forensics, diagnostics, and water and food safety. Importantly, 80% of Life's revenue is recurring (i.e., consumables and services) with the other 20% related to instrument sales.

We saw a compelling entry point to purchase the stock during the summer of 2011 as investors became increasingly concerned about potential National Institutes of Health ("NIH") funding cuts. In our opinion, these concerns were overstated given that a potential 8% cut to NIH funding would only translate to about a 1% headwind to Life's overall business, given that NIH funding only accounted for ~15% of Life's revenue. Importantly, NIH funding has doubled over the past 12 years to $30 billion and has historically received broad bipartisan support. Moreover, we felt that a reasonable cut to NIH funding would be more than offset by the increasing growth prospects from the emerging markets. At the time of our investment, emerging markets made up just 10% of Life's revenue but were growing at an annual rate of 25%. China alone was a $180 million revenue business growing at 25%, partially in response to the Chinese government's announcement that it was determined to invest $125 billion in health care and science over the coming years. Other growth opportunities that we felt were under-appreciated by the Street included sequencing product launches that exceeded expectations as well as applied markets in bio-production and forensics. Continue Reading »

We believe that company-specific value creation is frequently mispriced in the public markets. As a result, the RS Value Team employs an investment process that is driven by fundamental business analysis. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how companies create value, which by definition means dissecting businesses into their component parts to gain insights into how and where capital is being allocated, and the cash flows and returns associated with these capital decisions. When we have identified situations where there is a visible path toward future value creation, and a management team is in place that we believe is capable of executing the business plan, a company qualifies for our Recommended List. However, as value investors, we know that risk is not defined as share price volatility, but rather the permanent impairment of our clients' capital. As a result, Recommended List names only come into the portfolio when a) we can clearly quantify a downside or safety net value, b) the market provides us with an opportunity to purchase an interest in the company close to or, preferably, below that safety net price, and c) the investment augments the existing positions in the portfolio from both a risk and return perspective. While we expect, over time, that excess returns will be driven by superior stock selection, it is critical that we construct "all weather" portfolios—concentrated around our very best investment opportunities, but broadly diversified across the economy. We acknowledge that over short periods of time we may underperform our benchmark, but believe that our team structure, philosophy, and process will continue to provide us with the opportunity to generate excess risk-adjusted returns over a reasonable investment horizon. Continue Reading »

Advance Auto Parts (AAP) is the second largest auto parts retailer in the U.S. operating over 3,600 stores in 39 states. The company sells primarily non-discretionary automotive parts such as car batteries, brake pads, spark plugs, and mufflers to both do-it-yourself customers as well as commercial garages via its parts-delivery truck service. Our investment in Advanced Auto Parts was predicated on the following thesis: (1) solid industry fundamentals with acyclical demand drivers, defensible competitive positioning, and reasonable reinvestments opportunities; (2) a companyspecific opportunity to meaningfully improve the Company's financial performance as measured by sales productivity, operating margins, asset turns, and overall Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) relative to its two primary competitors (AutoZone and O'Reilly); and (3) a new leadership team with a solid business plan for narrowing this performance gap. Continue Reading »

Willis Group Holdings (WSH) is the world's third largest insurance broker, in an industry where 78% of the market share is held by the top six players. The company operates as an intermediary in placing both insurance and reinsurance coverage. Approximately 70% of company revenues are generated through commissions and over 93% is recurring. Willis Group's is the world's largest reinsurance broker and more than half of its cash flows are generated outside the US. The company holds minority interests in Gras Savoye (31%), a French brokerage firm, and Al-Futtain (49%), a Dubai brokerage firm. CEO Joe Plumeri was the primary architect responsible for transforming the company after it was acquired by KKR Holdings in the late 1990s. Continue Reading »

Philosophy and Process: We believe that company-specific value creation is often mispriced in the public equity markets. As such, the RS Value Team employs an investment process that is largely predicated on business analysis, with the assumption that stock prices will track economic value creation over time. We are, therefore, interested in understanding how companies create value, which by definition means dissecting businesses into their component parts to gain insights into how and where capital is being allocated, and the cash flows and returns associated with these capital decisions. When we have identified situations where there is a visible path towards future value creation, and a management team is in place that we believe is capable of executing the business plan, a company qualifies for our "farm team." However, as value investors, we know that risk is not defined as share price volatility, but rather the permanent impairment of capital. As a result, farm team names only come into the portfolio when we can: a) clearly quantify a downside or safety net value, and b) the market provides us with an opportunity to purchase an interest in the company close to or, preferably, below that safety net price. We acknowledge that over short periods of time we may underperform a benchmark, but believe that our team structure, philosophy, and process will continue to provide us with the opportunity to generate solid risk-adjusted returns over a reasonable investment horizon.

Philosophy and Process: We believe that company-specific value creation is often mispriced in the public equity markets. As such, the RS Value Team employs an investment process that is largely predicated on business analysis, with the assumption that stock prices will track economic value creation over time. We are, therefore, interested in understanding how companies create value, which by definition means dissecting businesses into their component parts to gain insights into how and where capital is being allocated, and the cash flows and returns associated with these capital decisions. When we have identified situations where there is a visible path towards future value creation, and a management team is in place that we believe is capable of executing the business plan, a company qualifies for our "farm team." However, as value investors, we know that risk is not defined as share price volatility, but rather the permanent impairment of capital. As a result, farm team names only come into the portfolio when we can: a) clearly quantify a downside or safety net value, and b) the market provides us with an opportunity to purchase an interest in the company close to or, preferably, below that safety net price. We acknowledge that over short periods of time we may underperform a benchmark, but believe that our team structure, philosophy, and process will continue to provide us with the opportunity to generate solid risk-adjusted returns over a reasonable investment horizon.

RS Investment Management Co. LLC is a privately owned investment manager handling separate client-focused equity and fixed income portfolios and mutual funds for its clients. This is its first-quarter commentary from its Value Funds:

Some of the firm’s operations deal with pension and profit sharing plans, investment companies, pooled investment vehicles, endowments, foundations, high net worth individuals, corporations, and banks. The firm invests in public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It invests in growth and value stocks for small-cap, mid-cap and large-cap companies. To create its portfolio, the firm carries out fundamental analysis. It conducts in-house research. Continue Reading »

Disclaimers: GuruFocus.com is not operated by a broker, a dealer, or a registered investment adviser. Under no circumstances does any information posted on GuruFocus.com represent a recommendation to buy or sell a security. The information on this site, and in its related newsletters, is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, investment advice or recommendations. The gurus may buy and sell securities before and after any particular article and report and information herein is published, with respect to the securities discussed in any article and report posted herein. In no event shall GuruFocus.com be liable to any member, guest or third party for any damages of any kind arising out of the use of any content or other material published or available on GuruFocus.com, or relating to the use of, or inability to use, GuruFocus.com or any content, including, without limitation, any investment losses, lost profits, lost opportunity, special, incidental, indirect, consequential or punitive damages. Past performance is a poor indicator of future performance. The information on this site, and in its related newsletters, is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, investment advice or recommendations. The information on this site is in no way guaranteed for completeness, accuracy or in any other way. The gurus listed in this website are not affiliated with GuruFocus.com, LLC.
Stock quotes provided by InterActive Data. Fundamental company data provided by Morningstar, updated daily.